September 25, 2007

I really love the idea behind a $100 laptop, simply due to the benefits its brings to people in the poorer countries. I think its of massive importance for everyone to be on as much of an equal playing field as possible.

Although the target is to sell the laptop for just $100, they still currently cost $188 each. Apparently, concrete orders from the governments have been somewhat lacking, meaning that thousands of laptops are not getting sent to where they’re needed.

To tackle this, they’re being sold to US citizens (I’d hope they’d come to the UK and other European countries too at some stage) for $400 under a scheme called “give one, get one”. This means that if you buy one of the low cost laptops, you also give one to a child in the developing world! How fantastic is that!?

The one concern that I do have is the environmental impact of making these machines. That said, they do use environmentally friendly methods for power, such as solar power and dynamo-based energy techniques. So we’ll see how the programme develops.